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#CloreSocialFellowFriday with Leon Ward

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 07 May 2021

This #CloreSocialFellowFriday, we sat down with Leon Ward, a 2019 Clore Social Emerging Leader Fellow. We talked about his leadership development journey, hopes for the youth sector, and work as the programme innovations director at Future First

Can you give us a little bit of background information about yourself and your organisation? 


I've worked in the youth sector for over 14 years now, and I've spent a lot of my career working around governance and helping charities diversify their boards with young trustees. I’ve been the trustee of several youth organisations, and am currently Deputy Chair of Brook, which is the largest youth sexual health and relationships charity. I'm also the newly appointed programme innovations director at Future First, an organisation builds alumni networks in state schools, recognising that relatable role models are critical in helping young people realise their ambitions and provide the connections they need to achieve success. 

Often, students know what they want to do as a career, but they don’t know how to get there because the jobs they want are filled up by people that don't look like them, sound like them or have similar backgrounds to them. We have a core product, which is a programme to get alumni back into schools to engage with students, typically around careers but also around well being, building confidence and resilience. A key aspect of my role is to showcase what alumni can give back to their state secondary school. For example, they might talk about their pathway to work, how they have overcome challenges and barriers, or run a homework club, or they might help run Sports Day or raise funds for a new music room. My job is to make sure we are continuously innovating in response to young people’s needs and schools’ goals, mobilising their volunteers to help today’s students.

Are there any projects that you’re working on at the moment?

On a daily basis, we help schools reach out to alumni who are living in the community or working away, and we use a mixture of social media and traditional media to try and get people to sign up. Alongside that, we help schools to work out and plan what alumni can do for them and how to use their expertise to relate classroom learning with life outside of school.

Core products aside, we’re also looking at some really interesting trials and innovations. One of the things I’m most excited about is trialling the role of alumni in primary schools and using local people to break stereotypes and open students’ eyes to the world of work. The alumni of primary schools include secondary school students who have an important role to play, especially during transition to ‘big school’. Our pilots have been really successful so now we just need to find a funder to help us get our great work out there. The Tottenham Hotspur Foundation are funding a piece of work with students in alternative provision, and Esmee Fairbairn is supporting the development of an exciting project to support Black boys (who are disportionately excluded), including alumni mentors and role models.  It's really exciting because we have the opportunity to put time, thought, and investment into building programmes that make a difference for young people. We are focussed on measuring our impact and doing what we know works.

Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with leadership development and Clore Social?

My Clore Social programme was life changing for me, because it gave me the time to reflect on my life and career progress and think about where I was going next. The action learning sets, personality profiling, and understanding 360 degree feedback were all really formative parts of the course. Not least, my cohort was full of a really amazing group of people, a lot of whom I’m still in touch with. I have a couple of ongoing projects, partnerships, and conversations with some of the cohort as well. 

I was 27 when I started the Emerging Leader programme, and I graduated when I was 28, and I think that it really came at the right time. Often, I think we have the tendency to coast from job to job without direction and just jump on the next thing that comes up. For me, investing in professional development gave me the clarity to be a bit more proactive and formulate a plan. 

What are you excited to see in the youth sector this year and beyond?

Well, I’ll be damned if I hear the words ‘COVID catch-up’ in schools, because kids have been learning this year, even if they haven’t been doing their core subjects. They’ve learned about resilience, the healthcare system, and about their role as citizens by protecting older people and staying home, and so many other things. I think we do young people a disservice by underestimating the value of their learning this year, whilst at the same time recognising the need for education recovery programmes for those whose learning has fallen behind. For too many disadvantaged young people the gap between themselves and their peers widened, and we are working to help narrow it.

In terms of what I’m excited about, I think we should be ambitious, so I would like to see an alumni network in every state school. Are we going to achieve this in the next few years? Maybe not, but we have the research that shows that if a young person has three interventions from role models they can relate to, they impact that young person’s choices, aspirations, ambitions and engagement with their school work. Seeing ‘someone like me’ be successful is a powerful motivator for study and helps build the confidence students need. I think the education sector is going to go through a difficult period around COVID recovery. However, it’s an opportunity to pause and reflect on what we're teaching our students and how to capitalise on some of the good that has come out of COVID. For example, what is the role of digital in learning and access, especially around careers? Now, we know that it’s possible for you to be a kid in Grimsby where I’m from in the northeast but still access an online work experience placement with JP Morgan or Clore Social in London. The other crucial bit is doubling down on trying to level the playing field for poor kids, because we know that disadvantaged young people were more negatively affected throughout the pandemic at every key indicator.

I believe that we're going to enter a really difficult period, but there is also a chance to innovate and grapple with the social mobility crisis in this country. I’d be delighted to talk with anyone who has a passion to drive change, a commitment to young people, and who understands the power of role models and networks in transforming young lives. Future First is happy to collaborate to make an even greater difference in terms of outcomes for young people. So, please do get in touch.

You can find Leon on Twitter @LeonjWard, and on LinkedIn.

You can find Future First on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

If you would like to be featured for a #CloreSocialFellowFriday, send us an email at info@cloresocialleadership.org.uk

 

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